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Masahiro Tanaka starts slow but lives up to billing in major-league debut

TORONTO — It was far from perfect but in his major-league debut Masahiro Tanaka showed the potential to be worth every penny the New York Yankees spent on him.

The Japanese pitching phenom earned the win and spoiled the Toronto Blue Jays’ home opener with a solid, and sometimes dominant, performance in his first game in North America. The Yankees roughed up Blue Jays pitching and won 7-3 in front of a sellout crowd of 48,197.

Blue Jays manager John Gibbons probably summed up Tanaka’s night best. “He’s the real deal.”

Tanaka’s night did get off to a rough start though.

Blue Jays leadoff hitter Melky Cabrera welcomed Tanaka to the major leagues with a solo home run to right field in the first inning.

“It was my mistake and I think Cabrera took a really good swing,” Tanaka said through an interpreter. But he wasn’t rattled as he got Colby Rasmus to ground out and struck out Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion to end the inning.

He hit another rough patch in the second when Dioner Navarro and Brett Lawrie hit back-to-back singles. Ryan Goins followed with a grounder to Mark Texeira but a hard slide by Lawrie broke up the double play attempt. Jonathan Diaz followed with a two-run single and the Blue Jays had their first lead of the game. Again, Tanaka got out of trouble by striking out Cabrera and Rasmus.

From the third inning on Tanaka settled down and started to look dominant. He struck out eight and induced a lot of groundball outs, including a double play in the sixth after Encarnacion led off with a single.

“I was missing some spots earlier in the game but as the game progressed I think I was getting better… I was nervous before going into the game, once I was up on the mound I was able to get into the game,” Tanaka said.

After Encarnacion’s hit in the third, Tanaka faced the minimum number of batters the rest of way. He pitched a perfect seventh inning then was lifted for Matt Thornton in relief in the eighth.

“The first couple innings were a little rough, but to give us seven innings and be under a hundred pitches – he did a really, really good job,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

“He’s pretty good at getting himself back on track. It’s one thing to do it in spring training but to do it under these circumstances, opening day here, huge crowd, excitement from the Toronto fans – he was able to fix his mistakes early on. That’s the sign of a mature pitcher to me.”

Tanaka finished the game with three runs, two earned, on six hits with eight strikeouts and no walks.

Tanaka played in the Japanese league with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles from 2007 to 2013. He signed a seven-year, $155 million contract (plus a $20 million posting fee) with the Yankees in January. In 2013 in Japan he went 24-0 in 27 starts with a 1.27 ERA. His every move has been watched since he arrived in North America.

“I think it’s really impressive – you think about what he dealt with all spring training, the attention that’s been on him, covers of magazines, everywhere he goes people want to know when he’s pitching, I mean, that started February 14th. I think he handled it great,” Girardi said.